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Operation Martyr Soleimani
Operation Martyr Soleimani was an Iranian military operation which occurred at 2:00 AM on 7 January (5:30 PM ET on 6 January) 2020 when the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) fired over 30 ballistic missiles fired from Iranian soil, targeting two Iraqi military bases (the Ayn al-Asad and Erbil airbases), which were hosting US forces taking part in the fight against the Islamic State. The strikes were retaliation for the United States' assassination of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani five days earlier; the Iranian government reasoned that, as the United States had openly claimed responsibility for Soleimani's assassination, they were obligated to retaliate in force. Background In January 2020, the Persian Gulf crisis escalated when the United States assassinated Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and Popular Mobilization Forces deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in an airstrike on an IRGC convoy at the Baghdad International Airport in Baghdad, Iraq. President Donald Trump and the Pentagon claimed that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks against US interests in the Middle East, having allegedly already directed a deadly rocket attack on the US K-1 Airbase in Kirkuk in December 2019. In the days following the 3 January assassination of Soleimani, Iran vowed harsh revenge against the United States. Trump responded by threatening to bomb 52 selected targets in Iran (including cultural sites) if Iran retaliated, escalating tensions further. On 7 January, Iran took the drastic step of declaring the US Department of Defense (including the US Armed Forces and Pentagon personnel) "terrorists", and, as tensions between the US and Iran escalated, Germany and Canada began to withdraw their forces from the country. Attack At 2:00 AM on 7 January, Iran fired more than thirty ballistic missiles at two American airbases in Iraq, targeting the Ayn al-Asad Air Base west of Baghdad and the Erbil International Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iranians then warned the US about a second barrage of missiles as the beginning of their "hard revenge" against the USA. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's advisor Saeed Jalili tweeted a picture of the Iranian flag, mocking Trump's tweeting of an American flag following Soleimani's assassination. Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif tweeted that Iran had acted within the rules of the United Nations charter, as it had carried out the strikes in "self-defense", and it threatened to attack any country which aided and abetted any US reprisal. While early reports stated that there were Iraqi casualties, the Iraqi military later revealed that there were no casualties in either airstrike; Iran later claimed that 80 Americans had been killed and 200 wounded. Aftermath While the Iranian attacks stoked fears that the US would respond in force, it became clear that Iran had purposefully avoided harming any US or Iraqi soldiers in the airstrikes, and that the retaliation was merely a symbolic response to the Soleimani airstrike; the IRGC timed it to take place at roughly the same time as Soleimani's killing. At 11:30 AM on 8 January 2020, Trump addressed the media from the White House and stated that he was willing to embrace peace if Iran was willing, and to repeal and replace the JCPOA nuclear deal, although he promised to enact further sanctions against Iran. On 16 January 2020, it was revealed that 11 American servicemen had received concussions during the attack. Category:Persian Gulf crisis Category:Air raids